Read Online Blood Game: A Jock Boucher Thriller by David Lyons - Free Book Online Page A

asked.
    “Had to,” Dumont replied.
    “Why?”
    “To take inventory. I have some valuable weapons in here.”
    “Anything missing?”
    “No. The murderer must have had his own gun and taken it with him.”
    “You go in there in those shoes?”
    “No. The ones I wore are right inside here.” He pointed to the floor just inside the door. “I didn’t want to track blood through the house.”
    “Good. You touch anything?”
    “No.”
    Fitch knew this was a lie, a lie he would be forced to cover up. This was why he’d been called. “Has your wife seen this?”
    “I wouldn’t let her downstairs. She’s in bed.”
    Fitch took a deep breath, and wished immediately he hadn’t. There was so much decay in the air. Aerated blood. The dank musk of long-fermented juice of the grape seeping through the rare imperfect cork. Mold spores so fecund in dark, humid subterranean caverns. Mostly, it was the rank scent of death.
    “Got to get the body moved.” He pulled out his cell.
    “You won’t get a signal down here,” Ray Dumont said. “Shall we go upstairs?”
    They went to the kitchen, and Fitch made the necessary calls.
    “She knew the killer,” he said, looking at the empty plate. Everything on the table was just as it had been.
    “Yes,” Dumont said. “She probably let him in throughthe back. I know he left that way; the door was open when we got home. You can look in her quarters. I think she let him take a bath.”
    “You seem sure it was a man.”
    “Look in the bathroom.”
    Fitch did. The team would be busy in there, as well as the kitchen. A glance was all that was necessary. “It was definitely a man, and they probably knew each other well,” he said, “though I doubt their relationship would have stood the test of time even if she hadn’t been killed.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    “The state he left the bathroom. Women might excuse a guy not rinsing the tub when he’s done taking a bath, but not rinsing the sink after shaving? That’s disgusting. Anyway, they’re going to remove the body, then go through the basement first. Anything down there you don’t want them to see?”
    “No, Detective, nothing.”
    To Fitch, this confirmed the previous lie. “Mind if I take another look?”
    “Certainly not.”
    The cave was no more inviting on the second visit. Fitch sidestepped the pool of blood in an attempt to stand where the shooter had been. In the ghostly light, he calculated the height of the body, then extrapolated that of the killer; only slightly taller. Which meant he was holding the gun waist-high, pointed up. Which meant a goodpossibility that the shooting was an accident. An aimed gun would have been held higher. He glanced at the far wall, at the height where the woman’s head would have been before it was blown off her body. There it was. He stepped around the gore and pried the bullet from the wall without damaging it too much. A penknife was enough; the concrete was softened and slowly rotting from humidity. He stepped back to his previous position and noticed a chink in the cement floor, close to and possibly right between the feet of the gunman. He bent over. It was recent. Something hard had fallen and chipped the cement. The gun? Yes, Fitch surmised, it had been a horrifying accident. The man had dropped the gun. Fitch got down on his knees and took his mini Maglite out of his pocket. There was a chip in the cement floor and powder burns. The gun had fired when it dropped. The second bullet could be anywhere, and the team would soon be here. Now he’d have to stay with them and oversee every last detail until they finished and left, taking custody of the second bullet if they found it before he did. It was going to be a long night. He stood up, cursing his creaking joints, and went upstairs.
    “Can you make some coffee?” Fitch asked Dumont.
    The owner of the estate home just looked at him.
    “I know how to make a pot of coffee, if you’ll just show me where